The Year Undone

The reaping seems particularly deep, this season
brought new reasons to wish a speedy New Year to begin;
let the lingering furrows that it leaves on our brow
to round  and flatten by the weight of time and sky fallen tears.
Every turn of the page seems to burn a new scar
some loved or adored spirit wisped away
like candles in too harsh wind; it does not stay.
Life is the miracle on swift wings.

Held like a treasure by those who understand
time is the only path, unforgiving and filled
with the moments we could not keep, and yet
somehow, in the recall they flash by again-
an echo of what was, a wished for return
a quickened flash, and a slow burn.

The reaping cuts so dear, staring glass-eyed,
we feel the winter touch bare skin.

winter's green

Cold gray days, and green trees
wear the newly fallen snow;
they make a deeper silence
as they muffle roars to whispers.

Sentinels of a boundless season, they stand
wrapped in today's fresh quilt,
bowing with accustomed grace
under weight of new crowned beauty.

I hear the groan of tangled roots
the grudging rub of cross-leaned trunks
re-assembling the order
 agreed so long ago
with the flat face of the tilted sun
and harsh and testing winds.

Here among winter's green
embraced by the warmth it needs
to freeze but a little
there is peace and vapor breath.

As if all of the animals know
each day we climb the ladder
to greater light and warmth.
Today, we tread upon earth's sweet sleep 
beneath its soft, white blanket.

My path to there

 

You stood there, where i journeyed;
half-across the world i knew, into the new
There like the silvered nights I'd left behind
were you in memory and touch, in kind, a blend
of wished for things and vaunt rebellions.

Considered at the edge of hope,
the petal fall of soft moon flower, a poetry
of soft winds and eager skin; turned wintry chill
into the breathless heat of summer.
It was solstice in the southern hemisphere
as tropical heat burned in our thoughts,
hidden within ancient lines, and revealed
in the sandy gist of her skin
on the burnished bronze of mine.

dark days and light years

The autumn comes with such haste
not like the slow crawl from winter to spring;
autumn comes like the sunset in the mountains.
One is sure there are still golden rays flowing
in the valley below, but the chills
have seized the hills; fallen into dark days.

Thus the calendar seems to be a liar
unfair in its desire to fold my sunny days of play away.
i think it wrong, like the night time storm that quiets bird songs;
could it not find a better time...

When the world is here to please me, and i accept
nothing less, I imagine my powerful self esteem
offended; I pound afoot that seismically resounds
from here to the Eagle nebula or some such
creature of eternal tides so vast we measure them
in ages of wished for life...light years.

I could stop here, having said what was needed to expose
the charlatan chronicler of the calendar days,
but there is chicanery within the dishonesty.
Autumn with its sudden snow and bitter squalls
is still far milder than winter, and confounds my frown.
Though I wince in the morning frost, it is
like all of the blessed life we truly see,

from the turn of the world over the ocean,
the arc of her pouted lower lip,
the curl of the flaring wave ashore,
and the sway of her perfect hips,
it is all... exquisitely beautiful.

Lost pennies

 

Fumbled over my fingers, under
a gaze only half-here, the copper disks
that make a slowest mountain of wealth
speak of meanings, numbers and herstory.

Lincoln never smiles nor raises his chin
he led us in life and after led us still
now still he reminds there was greatness in courage
strength when withstanding the gale
and the best of us when love of truth rises
above the lines of present sight. We soar
over the arch of a wished for time;
when we would be better than we could imagine.

Below my bearded friend in his most familiar silhouette
are the numbers of this and other lives.
Remembered some and discovered others
times that search the spirits for the present echoes
of past agreement; for we are truly lost now
if we cannot share this eternal wish, to be true to self
and every other human.

Jesus and Sparrows

 

The air holds a low cloud  of smoke
remnants of dreams, stale jokes, yo' mama'so pokes
and  that umm-ummm-ummmm when she walks past;
the music squeezes in between the wiggles and the walks,
the cocky strolls, big hats,  and all the talk.
I can listen to the air

Then someone turns on Miles and it fades
to Duke and the Train, and I think of the last
song my Mother sang, just to me.

Was when the crowd gathered
in the church by the railroad tracks, on the Sunday
afternoon of bird sounds in  summer breezes
made for white ball, brown bats and green blades
as I sat; wanting so many other things, I got
the answer to a prayer I'd not yet conceived.

She pointed her eyes and arms upward,
to the heaven she had carefully made
by blessings sown in fields of Love,
and she sang, soft and sweet, of Jesus, and sparrows
and faith that makes mountains take wing,

the crowd rocked to rhythm, caught-up in her warmth,
and listened to the air,
as she sang just to me